Part 5

'This Priory or Abbey (of St. Michael's Mount) being dissolved by Act of Parliament, and given to the King, 33rd Henry VIII., 1542, he gave the revenues and government of the place to Humphry Arundell, Esq., of the Lanherne family, who enjoyed the same till the first year of King Edward VI., 1549; at which time that King set forth several injunctions about religion; amongst others, this was one, viz.: That all images found in churches, for divine worship or otherwise, should be pulled down and cast forth out of those churches; and that all preachers should perswade the people from praying to saints, or for the dead, and from the use of beads, ashes, processions, masses, dirges, and praying to God publicly in an unknown tongue; and, least there should be a defect of preachers as to these points, homilies were made and ordered to be read in all churches. Pursuant to this injunction, one Mr. Body, a commissioner for pulling down images in the churches of Cornwall, going to do his duty in Helston Church, a priest, in company with Kiltor of Kevorne, and others, at unawares stabbed him in the body with a knife; of which wound he instantly fell dead in that place. And though the murderer was taken, and sent up to London, tried, found guilty of murder in Westminster Hall, and executed in Smithfield, yet the Cornish people flocked together in a tumultuous and rebellious manner, by the instigation of their priests in diverse parts of the shire or county, and committed many barbarities and outrages in the same; and though the justices of the peace apprehended several of them, and sent them to jail, yet they could not, with all their power, suppress the growth of their insurrection; for soon after Humphry Arundell, aforesaid, governor of this Mount, sided with those mutineers, and broke out into actual rebellion against his and their prince. The mutineers chose him for the General of their army, and for inferior officers as Captains, Majors, and Colonels, John Rosogan, James Rosogan, Will. Winslade of Tregarrick or St. Agnes at Mithian, John Payne of St. Ives, Robert Bochym of Bochym, and his brother, Thomas Underhill, John Salmon, William Segar, together with several priests, rectors, vicars, and curates of churches, as John Thompson, Roger Barret, John Woolcock, William Asa, James Mourton, John Barrow, Richard Bennet, and others, who mustered their soldiers according to the rules of the military discipline at Bodmin, where the general rendezvous was appointed. But no sooner was the General Arundell departed from St. Michael's Mount to exert his power in the camp and field aforesaid, but diverse gentlemen, with their wives and families, in his absence possessed themselves thereof; whereupon he dispatched a party of horse and foot to reduce his old garrison, which quickly they effected, by reason the besieged wanted provision and ammunition, and were distracted with the women and children's fears and cries; and so they yielded the possession to their enemies on condition of free liberty of departing forthwith from thence with life, though not without being plundered.

'The retaking of St. Michael's Mount by the General Arundell proved much to the content and satisfaction of his army at Bodmin, consisting of about 6,000 men, which they looked upon as a good omen of their future success, and the firstfruits of the valour and conduct of their General. Whereupon the confederates daily increased his army with great numbers of men from all parts, who listed themselves under his banner, which was not only pourtrayed, but by a cart brought into the field for their encouragement, viz., a pyx under its canopy; that is to say, the vessel containing the Roman host, or sacramental sacrifice, or body of Christ, together with crosses, banners, candlesticks, holy bread and water, to defend them from devils and the adverse power (see "Fox's Martyrology," p. 669), which was carried whersoever the camp removed, which camp grew so tremendously formidable at Bodmin, that Job Militon Esq., then Sheriff of Cornwall, with all the power of his bailiwick, durst not encounter with it during the time of the General's stay in that place, which gave him and his rebels opportunity to consult together for the good of their public interest, and to make out a declaration, or manifesto, of the justice of their cause and grounds of taking up arms; but the army, in general consisting of a mixed multitude of men of diverse professions, trades, and employments, could not easily agree upon the subject matter, and form thereof. Some would have no justice of the peace; for that generally they were ignorant of the laws, and could not construe or English a Latin bill of indictment without the clerk of the peace's assistance, who imposed upon them, with other attorneys, for gain, wrong sense, and judgment--besides, in themselves, they were corrupt and partial in determining cases; others would have no lawyers nor attorneys, for that the one cheated the people in wrong advice or counsel, and the other of their money by extravagant bills of costs; others would have no court leets, or court-barons, for that the cost and expense in prosecuting an action at law therein was many times greater than the debt or profit. But generally it was agreed upon amongst them that no inclosure should be left standing, but that all lands should be held in common; yet what expedients should be found out and placed in the room of those several orders and degrees of men and officers none could prescribe.

'However, the priests, rectors, vicars, and curates, the priors and monks, friars and other dissolved collegiates, hammered out seven articles of address for the King's Majesty, upon grant of which they declared their bodies, arms, and goods should all be at his disposal, viz.:

'No. 1. That curates should administer baptism at all times of need, as well week days as holy days.

'2. That their children might be confirmed by the Bishop.

'3. That mass might be celebrated, no man communicating with the priest.

'4. That they might have reservation of the Lord's body in churches.

'5. That they might have holy bread and water in remembrance of Christ's body and blood.

'6. That priests might not be married.

'7. That the six articles set forth by King Henry VIII. might be continued at least till the King came of age.

'Now these six articles were invented by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester (who was the bastard son of Lionel Woodvill, Bishop of Salisbury, by his concubine, Elizabeth Gardiner; the which Lionel was fifth son of Richard Woodvill, Earl Rivers, 1470), and therefore called his creed, viz.:

'1. That the body of Christ is really present in the sacrament after consecration.

'2. That the sacrament cannot truly be administered under both kinds.

'3. That priests entered into holy orders might not marry.

'4. That vows of chastity entered into upon mature deliberation, were to be kept.

'5. That private masses were not to be omitted.

'6. That auricular confession was necessary in the Church of God.

'To these demands of the Cornish rebels the King so far condescended as to send an answer in writing to every article, and also a general pardon to every one of them, if they would lay down arms. (See Fox's "Acts and Monuments," Book IX. p. 668). But, alas! those overtures of the King were not only rejected by the rebels, but made them the more bold and desperate; especially finding themselves unable longer to subsist upon their own estates and money, or the bounty of the country, which hitherto they had done. The General therefore resolved, as the fox who seldom chucks at home, to prey upon other men's goods and estates farther off for his army's better subsistence. Whereupon he dislodged from Bodmin, and marched with his soldiers into Devon, where Sir Peter Carew, Knight, was ready to obstruct their passage with his posse comitatus. But when they saw the order and discipline of the rebels, and that their army consisted of above 6,000 fighting-men, desperate, well armed, and prepared for battle, the Sheriff and his troops permitted them quietly to pass through the heart of that country to Exeter, where the citizens, upon notice of their approaches (as formerly done), shut the gates, and put themselves in a posture of defence.

'Things being in this posture, the General, Arundell, summoned the citizens to deliver their town and castle to his dominion; but they sent him a flat denial. Whereupon, forthwith he ordered his men to fire the gates of the city, which accordingly they did; but the citizens on the inside supplied those fires with such quantities of combustible matter, so long till they had cast up a half-moon on the inside thereof, upon which, when the rebels attempted to enter, they were shot to death or cut to pieces. Their entrance being thus obstructed at the gates, they put in practice other expedients, viz., either to undermine the walls or blow them up with barrels of gunpowder, which they had placed in the same; but the citizens also prevented this their design, by countermining their mines and casting so much water on the places where their powder-barrels were lodged, that the powder would not take fire. Thus stratagems of war were daily practised between the besieged and besiegers to the great hurt and damage of each other.

'King Edward being informed by his council of this siege, and that there was little or no dependance upon the valour and conduct of the Sheriff of Devon and his bailiwick to suppress this rebellion or raise the siege of Exeter, granted his commission to John Lord Russell, created Baron Russell of Tavistock by King Henry, and Lord High Admiral and Lord Privy Seal, an old experienced soldier who had lost an eye at the Siege of Montreuil in France, to be his General for raising soldiers to fight those rebels; who forthwith, pursuant thereto, raised a considerable army and marched them to Honiton; but when he came there he was informed that the enemy consisted of 10,000 able fighting-men armed; which occasioned his halting there longer than he intended, expecting greater supplies of men, that were coming to his aid under conduct of the Lord Grey; which at length arrived and joined his forces, whereupon he dislodged from thence and marched towards Exeter; where, on the way, he had several sharp conflicts with the rebels with various success, sometimes the better and sometimes the worse; though at length after much fatigue of war, maugre all opposition and resistance of the rebels, he forced them to raise their siege, and entered the city of Exeter with relief, 6th August, 1549, after thirty-two days' siege, wherein the inhabitants had valiantly defended themselves, though in that extremity they were necessitated by famine to eat horses, moulded cloth, and bread made of bran; in reward of whose loyalty King Edward gave to the city for ever the Manor of Evyland, since sold by the city for making the river Exe navigable.

'After raising the siege, as aforesaid, the General, Arundell, rallied his routed forces of rebels, and gave battle to the Lord Russell and the King's army with that inveterate courage, animosity, and resolution, that the greatest part of his men were slain upon the spot, others threw down their arms on mercy, the remainder fled, and were afterwards many of them taken and executed. Sir Anthony Kingston, Knight, a Gloucestershire man, after this rebellion, was made Provost-Marshal for executing such western rebels as could be taken, or were made prisoners in Cornwall and Devon, together with all such who had been aiders or assisters of them in that rebellion; upon whom, according to his power and office, he executed martial law with sport and justice (as Mr. Carew and other historians tell us); and the principal persons that have come to my knowledge, over whose misery he triumphed, was Boyer, the Mayor of Bodmin; Mayow of Clevyan, in St. Colomb Major, whom he hanged at the tavern sign-post in that town, of whom tradition saith his crime was not capital; and, therefore, his wife was advised by her friends to hasten to the town after the Marshal and his men, who had him in custody, and beg his life. Which, accordingly, she prepared to do, and to render herself the more amiable petitioner before the Marshal's eyes, this dame spent so much time in attiring herself and putting on her French hood, then in fashion, that her husband was put to death before her arrival. In like manner the Marshal hanged one John Payne, the Mayor, or Portreeve of St. Ives, on a gallows erected in the middle of that town, whose arms are still to be seen in one of the foreseats in that church, viz. in a plain field three pine-apples. Besides those he executed many more in other places in Cornwall, that had been actors, assisters, or promoters of this rebellion. Lastly, it is further memorable of this Sir Anthony Kingston, that in Sir John Heywood's chronicle he is taxed of extreme cruelty in doing his Marshal's office aforesaid. Of whom Fuller, in Gloucestershire, gives us this further account of him; that afterwards, in the reign of Queen Mary, being detected, with several others, of a design to rob her exchequer, though he made his escape and fled into his own country, yet there he was apprehended and taken into custody by a messenger, who was bringing him up to London in order to have justice done upon him for his crime; but he being conscious of his guilt, and despairing of pardon, so effectually poisoned himself that he died on the way, without having the due reward of his desert.

'After the death of Humphrey Arundell, Governor of St. Michael's Mount, executed for treason as aforesaid, King Edward VI. sold or gave the government and revenues thereof to Job Militon, Esq., aforesaid, then Sheriff of Cornwall, during his life; but his son, dying without issue male, the government, by what title I know not, devolved upon the Bassets of Tihidy, from some of whom, as I am informed, it came by purchase to Sir John St. Aubyn, Bart., now in possession thereof.'

A contemporary account of Humphrey Arundell's execution in Mr. Richard Howlett's 'Monumenta Franciscana,' vol. ii., 27th January, 1550, states: 'Was drawne from the Tower of London vnto Tyborne iiii persons (Humfre Avrnedelle, Bere Vynch, Chyffe, Homes), and there hangyd and qwarterd, and their qwarteres sette abowte London on euery gatte; thes was of them that dyd ryse in the West cuntre.'

It has already been observed that an attachment to the Roman Catholic faith led many of the Arundells into trouble: as exemplifying this, I have culled a few other instances from the pages of a writer belonging to that Communion.

'The next successor to the property' (a son of John Arundell, the friend of Father Cornelius), 'was indeed a great sufferer for conscience' sake. In a letter before me of F. Richard Blount, dated 7th Nov., 1606, he says that Mr. Arundell, amongst others, had been forced to compound for the possession of his property by paying heavy fines to the Crown. He had been convicted of recusancy, but King James directed by his letters patent (20 Feb., 4 Jac. I., 1607) that none of Mr. Arundell's lands were to be seized so long as he paid £240 a year for not frequenting church,' etc.

'George Arundell was another recusant (20 June, 34 Eliz., 1591), and paid a similar fine.

'From a letter in the State Paper Office, dated 21 Oct., 1642, by a Parliamentarian, I make the following extract:

'"Mr. Arundell hath the greatest forces here, and is able to raise more than half the gentlemen in Cornwall, and he alone was the first that began the rebellion there. There hath lately been landed at some creek in that county ten or more seminary priests, which are newly come out of Flanders, and harboured in Mr. Arundell's house.[29] They are merciless creatures, and there is a great way laid for the apprehension of them."

'This gentleman had to suffer the sequestration of his estates for many years, and it cost him nearly £3,000 to get off at last.'

And the continued attachment of the Arundells to their ancient faith is exemplified in an interesting manner, as we shall see further on, by the conventual establishment still existing at Lanherne.

A few words will perhaps be expected as to the church, and the adjacent former residence of the Arundells of Lanherne. The sylvan beauty of the situation and its surroundings has already been adverted to, and the church and churchyard, at least, are still worthy of their site; but little remains of the once noble old mansion, of which Carew wrote: 'This said house of Lanherne is apportioned with a large scope of land, which, while the owners there lived, was employed to frank hospitality.'

At MAWGAN CHURCH the fragments of the screen which separates the nave and south aisle are carved with the arms of Arundell quartering Carminow, and on the south side of the chancel are brass shields on which the same arms are quartered with Archdekne, Arches, Carminow, Denham, Durnford, Grenville, etc. At the east end of the aisle on the screen are seven brass plates, 'chiefly inscribed with English and Latin verses, admonitory to the reader and eulogistic of the Arundells,' _e.g._:

'What favour FORTUNE him affords, his landes and livings tell; Of brethren five, though youngst he were, to lyve yet had he well. His worthie house him worshipp gave, so famous ys that race; The familie of ARUNDELLS, well knowne in every place. And GRACE that woulde not be o'ercome gave him a godlye ende; A gyft wherebi his soule ys sure to glory to ascende. Where unto GRACE & GOD he yealds the price and prayse for aye; What FORTUNE or dame NATURE gave, DEATH having tane away.'

The transept, or Arundell chapel, was once used as a burial-place for the nuns of the adjoining nunnery; it has a hagioscopic communication with the chancel.

The following inscription on a brass, the chief portion of which is now missing, has also been preserved:

'Here under lyeth buryed Mary Arundell, the daughter of Syr John Arundell, Knight, with the body of Elizabeth, his wyfe, who decessed the 23 day of April, A.D. 1578; and in the fourty-nyne yere of her age. On whose soul God have mercye.

'This virgin wyse, whose lampe with oyle repleat The bridegroom's call with burninge light attended; By following him hath won a worthye seate, And lyves for aye, though death this lyfe hath ended.' Etc., etc., etc.

Nearly the whole of the older Arundell brasses, which bore the names, dates of death, and ages of the members of that family are not now to be found in the church; one, a sort of palimpsest brass, bore on one side an acrostic to the memory of Jane Arundell, and on the other a representation of the Deity, and two other figures, probably symbolical. This brass is said to have been removed to the nunnery at the beginning of the present century.

LANHERNE HOUSE, formerly the manor-house of the Arundells, a picturesque but gloomy structure, is now a Roman Catholic Carmelite nunnery, 'by time unstricken, yet with ages hoar.' The south part of the house is the most ancient part; it has stone-mullioned windows, and a good doorway of Catacleuse stone.[30] The vane which still surmounts the dome represents a wolf--the crest of the Trembleath Arundells. About eighty years ago the building was assigned to sixteen nuns who fled from the siege of Antwerp by the French during the revolutionary wars; and their successors, now over twenty in number, continue to occupy the buildings.

_THE ARUNDELLS OF TRERICE._[31]

As the crow flies, Trerice, anciently Treres, as Carew informs us, is about five miles south of Lanherne and about the same distance from the mouth of the Gannel, one of whose tributary streamlets runs round the slope on whose southern side still stands great part of the handsome and extensive mansion of this branch of the family. It is not the original building, dating as it does only from the year 1573; but its charming and sheltered situation, 'its costly and commodious dwellings,' the rich colours of the time-stained masonry, its huge mullioned windows, and the magnificent proportions of its large and lofty hall, stamp it as one of the few remaining mansions of the Cornish gentry that speak of the wealth and power and hospitality of the 'good old times.'

The county histories are almost silent as to the early seat of this branch of the family; but there is no reason to doubt that its _site_ remains the same; and that Trerice was inhabited by an Arundell at least so far back as the reign of Edward III.--one Ralph being here, whilst his cousin (or perhaps his brother), Sir John, who married Elizabeth Carminow, held sway at Lanherne.[32] Apropos of this marriage into the powerful and wealthy family of Carminow, it is interesting to note that in the Register of Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter, and founder of Exeter College, Oxon, we find that, in the year 1316, 'on the Monday before Michaelmas, our lord' (the Bishop) 'offered his niece, Joan Kaignes, as wife to John de Arundell, son and heir of John de Arundell defunct, who refused for the present; William Walle was present.' Were John's affections already pledged to the fair Elizabeth? The incident shows at least that the Bishop was desirous of forming an alliance between one of his own relatives and a house so important as that of Arundell.

Hals says that the Arundells of Trerice bore, at one time, the arms of Lansladron, viz., sable, three chevrons argent; but that at length they adopted the well-known coat of the family: sable, six swallows argent--three, two, and one.

Leland, writing of the Arundells of Trerice, observes: 'This Arundale giveth no part of the arms of the great Arundale of Lanheron, by St. Columbe. But he told me that he thought he cam of the Arundales in base Normandy, that were lordes of _Culy Castelle_;[33] that now is descended to one Monseir de la Fontaine, a Frenchman, by heir generale. This Arundale is caulid Arundale of Trerise, by a difference from Arundale of Lanheron. Trerise is a lordship of his, a three or four miles from Alein chirch.'